Final Evaluation!

As part of the AS thriller practical we was put in to groups to produce a thriller opening. In this practical we had to work together and also sort out how film will open - where, how and when. As the deadline was set we had a couple weeks to pull everything, including filming, editing and making soundtrack. The film is called “Mortal Remains”, as a group we thought the title suits best with the film.


The scene starts of with the main star, "Lauren" walking from round the corner. (Long Shot)








Match cut from a different angle. (Extreme Long Shot)










After a short while our first title sequence appears and transition in a cross fade.









Later on in the opening, there was a clip which is one of the most effective scene the "red flush".





The media product that we produced shows some convention of a media product such as the use of camera works, editing (smooth transitions) and the soundtrack added. Watching, the Documentary from the previous lesson had many directors and critics having their own unique views about how to start the film opening in the best way. In the film “Seven” the title sequence is very effective and shows a lot of tension which makes the audience craves for more. Although starting off strong is tempting there are also some bad points such as; starting off strong would mean you will have to top that and build up the standard of the film. We started off quietly at the beginning and gradually building up suspense to audience, this way is consider being one of the best openings according to Jean Jacques. We tried to put smooth transitions in our opening like in the film “Seven”. We used crossed dissolve which was the most suitable in the scene.

Looking back at the preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt loads and progressed a lot from back then, to making the full product now. Our preliminary film was about creating a simple dialogue short clip which should show “match cuts” from different angles and basically making the film have some meaning and excitement. From the “match cut” exercise that we had to do, I learnt how to smoothly match a scene together in different angles. Planning and story-boarding is very important because this starts you off and helps you builds your film with out planning the film wouldn’t have much meaning and would be all over the place. Editing is the main bit because this brings the whole film together, makes everything flow smoothly, and gives it meaning and helps the audience to understand.

As a group we discussed that the film should be age 18+ because this gives us a better range on how far we could go on adding extra touches and I think that the age group works well with our media product. We went for the old stereotypical woman as the “weak” character but still dominant.

There are many media institution; the most suitable one for my media product is having it distributed as an independent UK release therefore it would be shown in some UK cinemas’ only such as private cinemas that shows limited amount of films. After the distributing the film it will then be released as a DVD after a couple months when movie is out. The DVD will include behind the scene and casting, this will hopefully attract viewers to buy the DVD.

The perfect person for my media product would be some one such as; Mylinh, 18 works in Gap, enjoy going out shopping, and love watching movies. She shops in “River Island” and “Top Shop”. She is currently studying English Literature and Language. Mylinh would enjoy our film because she’s into British films and she love thriller films.

The film will attract the audience by having a “star” leading main role, which shown, at the beginning of the film, which might attract the audience. The star of the film is “Lauren Rayns”, she has previously had some minor roles in “Adulthood” and is now the star of the film. People that enjoy watching thriller films would consider coming to watch the great movie.

After evaluating my media product, I have completely enjoyed every moment of working with my group members, filming and editing plus inserting soundtrack in our opening. From the very first time, I used “Final Cut Pro” I was clueless and I had a small amount of knowledge about the program but now I believe that I can now used the program in a well efficient manor. On “Final Cut Pro” you could do things like logging and capturing from the camera, and editing the film such as putting in transitions to make the next scene flow smoothly. Filming some parts of the film was quite hard especially the last scene we did, which was basically about “Lauren” looking into the toilet system and screaming when she discovers something. At that moment we had to use handheld but as a group, we helped each other and performed a great outcome.

The internet is a worldwide communication system that people use through computers and to be able to “blog” on the internet makes it so much easier to record and edit again as much times as you want. Blogging was simple because all you have to do is to record each media lesson and talk through it as if it is a mini diary updated every media class. Our film opening was uploaded on to “Vimeo” and published on our “blog” which worked well because we can review all the comments on the film opening and come to a conclusion if the film worked with the category “thriller”.

Monday 9th March 09

On Monday's lesson I was given the audiences' response to our thriller. There were many positive comments such as using good camera work angles and effective use of non-digetic sounds. There was hardly any negative main points which i am pleased to know, this tells me that we did a great job working in a group on this project. These audience feedback sheet is meant to help on our evaluation which is due on 25th March 2009 and must be posted on the Blog.

Wednesday 25th Feb. 09 - Final Lesson

In yesterday's lesson we continued to finish off the editing an added our credits in by adding "slugs" in first. This is basically an normal black screen and we added the text in another program with a simple font and animated sequence.

After adding the credits we inserted the screaming sound that Lauren did that morning. It worked really well with the scene but we had a bit of a problem, the scream was a bit too short so we lower the speed and it went perfectly with the scene.

We started to make the soundtrack and was trying to make a suitable soundtrack. We added things like heart beat towards the end to create intense and also bringing up the atmosphere slowly.

Various Workshop

My group and I attended to a couple of workshops to edit the film a bit more and to examine closely if anything was wrong with the thriller opening. We tried to get as many outside opinions as possible so we could improve on what we have done wrong. Attending to these workshop really help us because we didn't have much time til deadline so it was really useful.

Monday 26th Feb. 09

On Monday's lesson we stayed inside to edit our film as quickly as possible because unfortunately all our clips were in the wrong places and some scenes were deleted from our hard-drive due to a unknown reason therefore we had to start from the beginning and match all the scenes again. Due to this reason we didn't have enough time to add the scenes we recently filmed on Wednesday 11th February so we thought it is best as we left it how it is.

After finishing most of editing and transitions lesson ended and we discussed that we would go to the next workshop because everything is due on Friday therefore we needed to work extra hard to make sure we all get a good reasonable grade.

Wednesday 11th Feb. 09

On Wednesday's lesson we decided to do a bit more filming so we could fill in the gaps at the beginning. We basically wanted viewers to know the location and where the main character was coming from and what time of day it was, giving some details to the audience. We had a scene from many camera angles of the main character, Lauren and her friend walking out of the bar giggling and splitting direction.

After that scene we filmed Lauren walking by her self and coincidentally a newspaper gets in her way, this gives the clue to the viewers on a bit about the film if you look closely. As it was nearly the end of the lesson we quickly log and captured all the scene.

Monday 9th Feb. 09

On Monday's lesson we carried on with our filming but not outside because we didn't bring our props and costumes to the lesson. Although we couldn't the film outside we thought we should film another part of the film instead since all we need to film is the character's face and the expression shown. The scene we was filiming was when the main character, Lauren, looks in the toilet system and figures out something is wrong.

Filming the scene was really hard because we had to get the lighting right, the position of the character's face and the prop in the right angle so you can still see the character's face and expression. We borrowed a big massive glass bowl to make the see through effect to see Lauren's face and what's inside the toilet system.

We thought that we should film from underneath the table but it didn't work quite right so we asked Mickey if he could advise us with a better idea. We ended up stacking to tables on top of each other and filmed it from underneath the table. We wanted Lauren to scream so the camera would catch the sound but it didn't. Even though the scream sound did not appear on the camera we still got a great camera shot.

Wednesday 5th Feb. 09

As planned Monday was meant to be our filming day but due to the bad weather we could not follow what was planned. Therefore we missed out a lesson and on Wednesday the weather was still very poor so we had to stay inside. As there was nothing much to do my group and I, couldn't film again but we manage to edit the film, starting to put everything together to make everything flow smoothly. We some match cuts in the film and I personally thought that it was filmed really well, the camera angle and timings were accurate as how we imagined.

After adding some of the clips together we started to add some transitions to make the next slide flow better with the previous clip. We mostly used cross dissolve because this transition works best with most clips, and it is used in many films. When we was done with the first half of the film we watched it and discover that if the toilet scene was slowed down a bit more then it would give a special effect to the clip even more therefore we made the speed lower to 25%. At the end my group and myself really loved the outcome and was pleased with the camera angles.

Monday 26th Jan. Filming

Last week i was not able to come in due to my illness but i was inform by m group what we was going to do for our thriller. On Monday lesson me and my group went out filming in the N1 Centre but when we got there the scenery was not what we had in mind so we went searching for another suitable toilet which we found at the last minute in a Cafe. The Cafe is located in a small alley way path which is hidden.

We started filming our main character played by "Lauren". We had her walking towards the Cafe a couple of times to get the perfect shot angle when editing. "Lauren" was prepared and dressed or the part with the make-up on to make it more effective. We got some great shots of Lauren walking to the Cafe, with long shots and some match cuts shots of her boots. The lighting of the "Angel Square" makes the scene have a interesting look and timing because its orange and the lights were sort of dimmed.

The Preliminary Film and Planning Thriller

In today's lesson we overview our film to check what else is missing. We watched the film a couple of time and noticed that in the middle it seemed to be too quiet because all the other bits had a soundtrack and just not the middle bit, therefore we added a small soundtrack in the middle and adjusted the volume so that you can hear the actors voices.

After we finished we converted the film into a reasonable size and added it to our blog. I am particularly really pleased with the outcome that me and my group had done. It was very sucessful and fun to put together.

In the second half of the lesson we started planning our real thriller practical. We had to discuss simple extensions that will be in our opening. My group decided that our age group should be for 18 and over. So far our draft story line is basically about a renevated house, which a woman just was going to move in and she finds a room but the door is kind of stuck and then it creaks open with the scary soundtrack on. After a hand touches her shoulder and it turns out to be her friend or neighbour.

Monday 12th Jan.

On Monday's lesson our task was to edit our clip and try to make the match cuts work. As usually you use the "in and out" key to take out the sections we want to add in. We had to remember the "180 degree" rule which is about camera angels and making sure once you film the character from one angle you can't film the character from the other side because the character would then look like the person has changed side on the screen. We also added cross transition in the clip to make everything flow nicely together. We snipped some bits that we didn't need and extended some bits to make it work with all the other scenes (match cut). After editing the clip we added different types of soundtrack to test out what works best with our film.

Practice Practical Filming

Today our starter was to fill in a work sheet which was about a person who is a smoking addict and he was transferring confidential files to a CD, then sending it off. We had to figure out how to start the scene off, such as; what type of camera shot it is, any specific angles and directions. We had to try and put a lot of match cuts to show we know how to use them properly.

After our main task was to practice our camera work and try to get some match cut shots. The task was to have "a character opening the door, walks into a room, sits down opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue." We had to include a Reverse shot to show understanding of the 180 Degree Rule.

"Watching" Film Openings

Today's lesson was basically about viewing different type of film openings. We had to watch a documentary which was 30 minutes long and it was about directors and critics saying what film opening they prefer and how they start an opening of a film. During the film we had to fill in the sheet, answering the questions.

Thomas Sutcliffe says: "Films need to seduce their audience into long term commitment. While there are many types of seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irresistible." This means that you have to grab the audience's attention at the beginning of the film first, to give them an excitement and craving.

However, director Jean Jacques Beineix believe that if you start strong then you have to build it up the standard of the film therefore starting averagely and building up suspense to the film is a better idea according to Jean Jacques.

In the documentary Stanley Kauffmann describes how a classic opening is like. A classical opening first establish shots of the location then a shot of a building, through a window, in to a reception then to a office, and finally the camera will probably follow a character. This works often because everything is all in order and neatly structured out.

Kyle Cooper's title sequence to the film "Seven" is extremely effective because it creates a lot tension, and this makes the audience want to find out more about the film just by seeing the opening. In the title sequence there were shots of blade cutting, sewing using a needle, and pieces of things teared apart. There were many close-up shots and many transitions putted in. This opening gives out the message to the audience that the person is a Psycho.

After watching the documentary we started to blog for a bit, making sure everything is up to date. A while later we go to watch the previous AS student's "Thriller" opening. There was one in particular that stood out for me the most, the film opening was inspired by "Seven", title sequence. It was neatly structured and it tempted me to crave for more. There were many smooth transitions and just a great film opening.

Blogging Lesson

In today's lesson we was asked to write up our Evaluation and make sure all the blogs are up-to-date, what needs to be filled in, should be filled in. Our mini video was also uploaded on to "Blogger" and watching it again was good to see. After blogging we was asked to watch 2 mini clips of two completely different thrillers, one was kind of scary and the other was a action thriller. They were called, "Arlington Road" and the other, "Collateral". Our task was to analyse each clip writing what the lighting was, camera, music, editing and setting of each one.

Evaluation

In the practice filming session I had to get into groups and try to create a scene where there will be suspense and tension in the mini clip. Also in the clip we had to include an over the shoulder shot. To create different atmosphere we used all different kind of camera angle and some props were been used.

We were all happy with our camera angles and shots. The filming actually took a good 14 minutes of recording even though the mini clip is meant to be short. The shot that stood out the most was probably the extreme close-up shots, it was really effective because it showed tension in the scene and moreover the other extreme close-up shot we had in the mini clip with the glasses showed a bit of the character’s eye and the reflection of the cards. I personally thought that all the camera shots were fine and it worked really well with the transitions. The only negative thing is that the audio in the background was still in the exact position when there were some bits that weren’t appropriate.

The edits of the film was sharp and snappy, it went really well together probably because we had 14 minutes of recording. The transition used faded really well with each scene especially the one shown of the other 3 characters reaction; it was like one came after the other in a reasonable amount of time changing.

I learnt quite a few things about Mise en Scene such as props and costume are fairly important to filming because it helps viewers to understand more about the character and what they are doing. The way the characters stand and move basically all their actions, affects their character. I also learnt that the lighting can affect the mood of the clip such as dimming the lights creates the mysterious and serious atmosphere.

There were a moment in the mini clip where were some suspenseful moment like when the camera focuses on the two main characters, flipping backwards and forwards to generate suspense. The camera shows an extreme close-up on the “Grace”, which shows her eyes and face (sweat).

We pretty much filled everything in and I personally thought that the outcome came out really well. We followed all the instruction such as using the tri-pod correctly, using the extra 5 second rule before and after each shot and how to use the video camera properly.

The positive feedback that we got from our teacher and class was that the blends of the transition worked really well and the story line was fine. Everything scene worked well and my teacher especially like the shot of the character’s eye with the glasses with the reflection of the cards.

The practice filming session was definitely fun to be apart in. I got to work in groups, sharing my ideas with others and making a great mini clip about card game. Although it was practice, I learnt a lot and I will definitely remember all the skills I learnt and hopefully produce a great thriller film.

Wednesday 10th 2008

On Wednesday lesson we watched all the groups video clips to overview the good points about the camera angle and also discuss how does each clip gives out the mysterious and tension effect. After watching all our clips we head back to class and made a brainstorm on Thriller, talking about different conventions such as; Sci-Fi thriller, Comedy thriller and Action thriller.

We then watched a thriller film called "The Shining" by Stanley Kubrick and we was asked to look at each scene carefully to see the camera angles and how it makes the scene appropriate for the situation. i.e camera zooming in and out quickly to produce scary effect.

Computer Editing

In today's media lesson our group had to review the previous tape, which was recorded last lesson. We uploaded everything on the hard-drive so that everything is safely secure. We then was taught how to capture the clips by pressing the play button on the cam-recorder and also clicking the Esc button on the keyboard, on each take.

When we was done uploading all the clips, we each a turn to edit the film on Final Cut Pro. We used our skills from last media lesson about editing mini clips, adding them together and creating transition between each clip to flow smoothly. We started off with the "boots" scene because we wanted to wanted to create a mysterious atmosphere. After selecting the wanted scene and deleting the unwanted ones, we tried to make our way through the rest of the clips to make everything smooth and clear.

Practical Lesson

In today's lesson we was asked to record our film but first we had a tutorial lesson at the start on how to use the camera, tripod in a mature manner. I did not realize how sensitive they are and there is also a certain way you have to use it otherwise the camera could damage.

A long while after we was asked to plan out our full storyboard, detailing exactly where the location was, what type of angle shot it is and what prop we was going to use for that particular scene. During our discussion Vikki and Rashpul was asked to join the group which gave us an advantage on our mini film.

We started off filming in the main hall to give viewers the character walking and this creates tension and a mysterious effect. Filming this part we used a low angle shot panning from right to left. Each and everyone of us got to use the camera to each have a go on how to use it and decide whether it should be handheld or on a tri-pod. When we finished recording we playback the tape and was pleased with the outcome.

Moday's Lesson 8th Dec.

On Monday we was given a new assignment which was to make our own thriller film. To start us off, we was ask to go in to the computer room to have a little tutorial on how to edit a mini clip to another and use transitions between them. I learnt how to edit clips, such as cutting junk sections out and keeping the relevant sections. It was honestly a great exercise to do, to get to know how to use it like a professional. After we finished, I was revealed what group I was in. I'm with Grace and Lauren.

Straight after we was put into groups, our tasks was to write a brief on what we wanted in our first practiced filming clip which was about a card game. The main tasks was to create an atmosphere of suspense and mystery, by creating this scene we had the choice of shot distance, camera angle and its movement. The minimum of the task was to create atleast 12 shots including ECU, tracking and a over the shoulder shot.

We had a little discussion on what to prop to bring and the basic storyboard of the film. We decided to create tension, a dark room is most suitable. Also big sunglasses to create mysterious effect.